A Filipino Dota Team has reached the prestigious Finals of Star Ladder Season 10 in Kiev Ukraine.

A total of 12 teams from around the world will be competing for a total prize pool of $260,000 in this 4-day LAN event, from October 23 to October 26.

Team Inter-Active Philippines, or more commonly known as Execration, qualified by finishing first place in the Southeast Asian Qualifiers last month, beating Asian power houses Team Malaysia and MVP.Phoenix in the finals.

It was not an easy feat for our boys who were being considered as underdogs since the start of the online qualifiers. Execration had to play through awful lag spikes and high pings. They were also playing without any sponsors; all costs are being provided by their manager and the players themselves.

After Execration gained a name for topping the qualifiers, a Reddit post from a Malaysian E-Sports caster called for the Dota communities around the world to crowd-fund Execration’s sub-par gaming equipments. They were apparently using generic mice and keyboards as shown from a picture posted on their Facebook fan page.

A lot of Dota players and fans responded in support to this crowd-funding activity, but more surprising, it also caught the attention of Steelseries, arguably the best brand of gaming peripherals in the market today. A meeting between Steelseries and team Execration was arranged and they got the sponsorship they deserve.

Image from steelseries

Execration is not expected to win a single game in Kiev but the experience alone will help push this talented team to a higher level of competitive Dota.